One of our most popular birthday cakes is our Doughnut Cookie Monster cake. Since its birth back in 2015, we’ve made *thousands* of them and delivered them all over London. They’ve shown up as birthday cakes, baby shower centrepieces, and even as multi-tiered wedding cake showstoppers.

Did I ever imagine it would become such a phenomenon? Absolutely not. But looking back… cake, doughnuts, cookies, chocolate — of *course* it was destined for stardom. It’s gate-crashed more than a few celebrity parties, inspired countless bakers around the world, and even sparked fan art in the form of illustrations and tiny sculptures.

Did we “invent” the doughnut-topped cake? I’d *love* to wear that crown, but it’s hard to imagine someone somewhere didn’t plonk a doughnut on a cake before us. Still, anyone can recreate a stunning doughnut cookie cake at home and absolutely stun their guests.

If you want to go full professional, you can make every component from scratch — sponges, buttercream, chocolate drip, tempered shards, doughnuts — and give yourself a joyful four-hour baking marathon. OR you can use my shortcuts and whip up a gorgeous doughnut cake that looks wildly professional… in under 90 minutes.

Call it the Doughnut Cookie Cake dupe. Call it fake-it-till-you-make-it. Either way, it looks Drop.Dead.Doughnut.Gorgeous — and no one will believe it took you just an hour and a half.

The three parts to this recipe are: chocolate sponges, buttercream, and decorating.

Chocolate Cake Sponge

Our Chocolate Hero Sponge is a one-bowl, fool-proof recipe that makes 3×6" sponges or 2×8" sponges.

Buttercream

Ingredients

500g buttercream
3 Oreo cookies, crushed

The silkiest, melt-in-the-mouth buttercream is our Swiss Meringue Buttercream, but you can use American frosting or even supermarket tubs if you want to keep things simple.

Method

1. Set up your decorating station with a turntable, angled palette knife, and a board (8" for a 6" cake or 10" for an 8"). I’m making a 6" cake here.

2. Reserve 2 tbsp of Oreo crumbs and stir the rest into your buttercream.

3. Smear a little buttercream onto the centre of your board and fix your first sponge layer on top.

4. Add a layer of Oreo buttercream and smooth using the palette knife while rotating the turntable.

5. Add the second sponge and repeat the smoothing process.

6. Coat the sides with buttercream and smooth using a scraper.

7. Use the edge of your spatula to level and tuck in the top edges.

Decorate

Ingredients

150g chocolate ganache (try our 2-ingredient chocolate drip, or use chocolate spread!)
3 chocolate doughnuts
3 Oreo cookies
Chocolate bars of your choice

Method

1. Warm the chocolate spread to around 30°C and spoon drips over the edges.

2. Flood the centre and smooth.

3. Sprinkle over your saved Oreo crumbs.

4. Skewer doughnuts with cocktail sticks and secure them into the cake.

5. Break Oreos and place them around the top.

6. Add chunks of chocolate bars as the final flourish.

7. Serve at room temperature and marvel at your masterpiece.

How incredible does that look? If you made every element from scratch — well done, superstar. We do it day in, day out in our London bakery, and the effort is always worth it. But if you used the hacks? Still well done! We eat with our eyes first, and honestly… it looks JUST as good.

If you try it, tell us how it went in the comments — and don’t forget to share your pics on Instagram and tag us @angesdesucre!

Love, Reshmi xoxo

And if you'd rather skip the baking entirely, our bestselling Doughnut Cookie Monster cake is ready to be delivered fresh from our London bakery.